Four men have been arrested for allegedly trying to sell online Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency office in Varanasi, called the “mini-PMO”.

Laxmikant Ojha, Manoj Yadav, Babulal Patel and Jitendra Kumar Verma were picked up on Friday evening and sent to jail custody on Saturday on the charge of forgery.

Police said Ojha, a teacher at a school for special children, had on Wednesday posted an advertisement on the digital marketing website OLX with pictures of the bungalow, declaring it was for sale at Rs 7 crore.

The ad, which the Dutch domicile online marketplace removed on Thursday after being contacted by the Varanasi police, said the north-facing house with a built-up area of 6,500sqft had four bedrooms and four bathrooms.

It described the building as the “PMO office” in Varanasi and mentioned Ojha as the agent who would deal with the buyers.

The BJP had rented the building in the upscale Ravindrapuri neighbourhood after Modi became the Varanasi MP in 2014. Modi was meant to meet people there but has never stepped inside the premises during any constituency visit.

It’s only visiting Union ministers and other BJP parliamentarians who use the building to meet people and try to address their grievances.

Police sources said Manoj, Babulal and Jitendra were, respectively, a milk seller, an electrician and a tea seller. They said Ojha had told them the trio were his friends and had misled him by saying the building’s owner wanted to sell it.

“He (Ojha) said he had been offered Rs 7.5 lakh as his share if the building was sold online,” an officer said.

He quoted Ojha as saying the three co-accused had helped him post the ad from his smart phone since he wasn’t very tech savvy.

Experts said OLX cannot be held liable as it had followed the rules of “due diligence” under the Information Technology Act and pulled out the ad within 36 hours of learning about the mischief.